Overhead, FA-18 Hornet flying low, sunny day, glints off the tail fins, disappears into the glare. Roar of engines. Something flutters earthwards — small — paper — coloured — rectangular — currency — unfamilar — lands in a car park. Cyclone wire fence. Climb it, ignore warning signs Don’t Go Here Commonwealth Of Somewhere: nobody’s around, curiosity wins. Under a car, Caroline Chisolm’s sorriso sfumato darts out over a weave of orange and magenta: the old $5.
Holding a new one for comparison (HM the Q outwardly more dour, but a sly twinkle in her eyes). Frays, watermarks, fishscale patterns, a swashbuckling typeface; small, pink, microprinting, geometry. Both insubstantial, both invested with obligation and stories and symbols of a place and time, as remote and as shared as those in ochre inscribed into the mountains.
The owner of the note, blue flight suit, friendly eyes, comes past improbably soon: in town for the air show, local hospitality extending to a trailer in the grounds (hats off indoors all the same); an old suitcase with obsolete currency “sort of an heirloom,” politely disguised smirks at the shiny plastic note and the terse monarch; wry, warm respect of a traveller far from home.
